


in what dwelling joy may be

by elizajane



Series: wandering home [2]
Category: Shetland (TV)
Genre: Established Relationship, Friends to Lovers, Lightly Beta Read, M/M, New Relationship, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Phone Sex, Sexting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-13
Updated: 2018-07-15
Packaged: 2019-06-09 13:58:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15268944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elizajane/pseuds/elizajane
Summary: naked?would you like me to be?now that's an unfair questionis it? you’re the one who left me all alone until teatime





	1. Jimmy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [starslaugh](https://archiveofourown.org/users/starslaugh/gifts).



> My wife said they hadn't had enough orgasms in the first fic so I wrote her more. I will probably write even more.

There’s been a second reported break-in up at the MacCorey farm, several kilometers over from the Scudders’. Thankfully this time the intruders had been scared off with no injuries. Sandy suggests -- and Jimmy is inclined to agree -- that they’re probably looking for nothing more sinister than a rough sleeper or two, breaking and entering for food and small valuables they can sell on for a few quid.

“-- as I said, it were dark,” Tessa MacCorey is saying to them as she pours the tea. “I think two boys? Jumped over the wall at the back of the garden and off into the trees. All I did was wave a torch at ‘em.”

Sandy’s taking notes, so Jimmy accepts the tea and nods encouragingly for her to continue. “You say ‘boys’ -- any particular reason? Did you get a look at their faces?”

In his pocket Jimmy’s mobile vibrates in the three short bursts that indicate an incoming text. He feels his heart speed up just a wee bit at the notification, hoping it’s Duncan -- though it’s only been a little over an hour since they kissed goodbye at the door. _Christ_ , he’s in trouble.

He shakes his head at his own foolishness as he fishes out the mobile and thumbs at the screen to check.

_how your lonely house husband is spending his day._

The text is followed by a slightly blurry snapshot of Duncan’s legs, ankles crossed, bare feet propped up on their messy coffee table.

Jimmy rolls his eyes, even as he feels his cheeks flush at the _husband._ It twists something deep in his chest, to have Duncan use such a proprietary word. It’s unsettling, and awkward, but feels true underneath all of the messy feelings. True and irrevocable in a way that makes Jimmy aware he’s wondering _how_ to tell Cassie, not _whether_. Wondering how each of his colleagues will react the first time Duncan comes by the office and Jimmy leans in for a casual kiss.

The certainty suits his heart, and that Duncan seems equally sure of a shared future leaves him suffused with a sense of well-being and joy.

**_naked?_ **

Jimmy types the word and hits send before he can second-guess himself. The blur of Duncan’s pale knees and calves in the photo make him think of exposed skin further up.

“...be sure to ring if you think of anything else that may help in our inquiry,” Sandy is saying as Jimmy looks up.

“I will, Sandy,” Tessa says, and then to Jimmy, “How’s your Cassie, then?”

“She’s well, she’s well,” Jimmy says, as the mobile vibrates in his hand again. He resists the urge to look down, hastily pocketing the device as it vibrates a second time. “She’s -- ah, she’s landed safely.”

“That’s right! And our Aiden was just saying, the other night, how she’s gone off adventuring with that man of hers.” Tessa shakes her head in commiseration. “Seems like just yesterday that she and Aiden were starting secondary school. They grow up quick, don’t they?”

Jimmy accepts that indeed, they do, as he and Sandy stand up and gather themselves to leave. He can hear the voices of their officers outside which means they’ve swept the nearby wood without finding signs of anyone sleeping rough. They’ll have to regroup and do a more systematic sweep off towards the west.

As they step out unto the sun of the farmyard he lets himself check his mobile again. He nearly fumbles it when he wakes up the screen to a picture of Duncan’s left shoulder, bare, the thin black bands of the tattoo on his upper left arm against the worn brown corduroy of their sofa cushions.

_would you like me to be?_

**_now that’s an unfair question_ **

Jimmy rolls his eyes at the mobile as if Duncan can see him even though there is no video feed. But he’s also aware that Duncan’s question is ...an invitation to a certain kind of very private game. Sure enough, the mobile buzzes in his hand while he’s speaking to Molly Sinclair on dispatch and when he hangs up and looks down at the screen again -- carefully angling the screen so that Sandy standing a few feet away won't be able to see -- Duncan has responded.

_is it?_

The third photograph is cropped close, Duncan’s hand spread over his abdomen, pinkie finger just grazing the shadowy suggestion of the tight curls at his groin. Like the other photos, there is technically nothing explicit about the image. But it’s one of the hottest photos Jimmy’s ever seen.

He realizes he’s cradling the mobile to his chest as if to protect the image, and Duncan himself, from the world. Sandy has ducked into the passenger side of Jimmy’s car and is fiddling with his own device; everyone at the farm has gone back to the business of running the place. There is no one to see, but the conversation on the mobile screen is precious. A chain of evidence tying him to Duncan, and Duncan to himself, in new and unfolding ways.

The device vibrates against his palm and another message appears on the screen.

_you’re the one who left me all alone until teatime._

Jimmy smiles to himself. This is a game he’s terribly rusty at; last time he played you still paid 5p per text. But he’s pretty sure he’ll remember how it goes. He shifts, getting comfortable against the hood of the car as they wait for reinforcements, and types out a response.

**_and how much is it that you miss me, exactly?_ **

He’s aware of the way this conversation is waking up a dormant part of his attention. The part of himself that’s long been aware of Duncan of when Duncan enters or departs from a room, whether that awareness is immediately relevant or not. Apparently that awareness now extends to text messages too. He feels a sweet and secret satisfaction of knowing that, as he sets out on a tedious section-by-section search across the fields -- a search that looms between him and the hour he might reasonably release himself to go home for tea -- he’ll be carrying a sexy and mischievous Duncan with him.

_mmm_

Duncan’s texts appear on his screen line by line.

_miss you enough that the thought of putting clothes on is...uncomfortable_

_thinking of just returning to bed. your bed_

_care to weigh in?_

**_yes._ **

_yes you care to weigh in?_

**_yes I want you in my bed._ **

_naked?_

**_definitely naked_ **

Jimmy feels his pulse speed up slightly as he thinks about Duncan gathering himself to up from the sofa, padding barefoot back to Jimmy’s bedroom. The duvet is likely still rumpled, thrown haphazardly back over the bed as they had dressed -- interrupting one another with kisses. At some point after Jimmy had left, though, Duncan had undressed again. Where had he done that. Had he stripped himself efficiently in the toilet, or in his own bedroom? Had he stood by the sofa and started with his flannel overshirt then the t-shirt, then the jeans, the pants, until he was entirely nude? When Jimmy arrived back home would he find a puddle of Duncan’s clothes on the floor as if Duncan had been spirited away by faeries? Will he be following a breadcrumb trail of discarded garments down the hall to his own bedroom, where he’ll find Duncan flush with waiting?

Jimmy shivers, even though it's hardly a cold summer day.

_done_

The text comes in accompanied by yet another photograph that Duncan has taken, again in extreme close up, the curve of a hipbone, the casual drape of a wrist and hand that covers anything truly incriminating -- while suggesting everything. Jimmy’s mouth goes dry and he licks his lips, contemplating a response. His reinforcements will be here any minute and he’ll have to turn his focus back to the task -- the _professional_ task -- at hand.

_something else you want?_

Jimmy hesitates with his thumb poised over the alphabet on his mobile screen. He squints out over the fields toward the ocean. He and Fran had played like this every so often -- usually when Fran was in a mood to give, rather than receive, instruction.  Jimmy had enjoyed it when she got demanding. He’d always felt more sure of giving Fran the kind of sex _she_ wanted than he’d felt about responding on those days when she was in the mood for _him_ to ask -- demand even -- the kind of sex _he_ wanted.

He’d wanted _her_ … and he’d never known what to ask for, beyond that.

Now he wants Duncan. And he can hear in Duncan’s question the wishes a younger Jimmy had missed when Fran had asked the same: _Tell me how (and how much) (and why) you desire me._

He thinks about the night before, about that morning. About what he had most enjoyed about touching Duncan. About what he might like to imagine Duncan doing while Jimmy is occupied tramping about the wet underbrush of the wood that separates the MacCorey land from Scudders’ farm.

 ** _I want_** he starts, and then hits enter too soon.

 _me too ;-)_ Duncan responds immediately. Jimmy looks down at the mobile screen and thinks how absurd it is that being wanted by someone so familiar, so already beloved, can still feel like a closely-held secret settling deep in his belly.

 ** _touch yourself_** , he forces himself type before he thinks about how it would sound to say aloud.

**_touch yourself, gently, all over, everywhere you can reach. everywhere._ **

**_except your dick_ **

He thinks about the way Duncan had responded to him that morning, pliant under Jimmy’s hands before he was fully awake. The way he’d moved without urgency, the goal to touch and be touched rather than rushing to the finish line. The way he’d crowded in against Jimmy in the shower, as they’d toweled off after, the way he’d kept on touching Jimmy as they dressed and made coffee and at breakfast. The way they’d lingered in the door, for one more kiss.

What was it Duncan had said? _Maybe I’ll just stay here, naked and boneless and stinking of sex, all day waiting for you to return from work and fuck me._

**_take your time_ **

**_take the time we didn't have this morning_ **

**_and wait for me_ **

**_there_ **

**_on the bed_ **

**_until I get home from work_ **

**_THEN you can come for me_ **


	2. Duncan

On Jimmy’s bed, Duncan enjoys the quiet of the house and the enveloping scent of Jimmy all around him. He waits a minute, then three, then five following Jimmy’s final text:

**_there_ **

**_on the bed_ **

**_...then you can come for me_ **

_with pleasure,_ Duncan finally types out in response, keenly aware of the way Jimmy’s instructions are already dancing across his skin. Then he lets the mobile drop to one side. He closes his eyes, inhales, and stretches himself toes to fingertips, like a cat, luxuriating in the sun-warmed bedclothes.

He has things he should be doing today. Emails to send, travel arrangements to make, groceries to buy, laundry to catch up on. But he’s giving himself a day off to do exactly as he pleases and what he pleases right now is to follow Jimmy’s orders and think about Jimmy thinking about Duncan following his orders.

And isn’t it lovely: The permission to wind himself up nice and slow, giving Jimmy time to think long and hard, in detail, about everything Duncan could, and would, do while he waits for Jimmy to come home and take good care of him.

His eyes still closed,  Duncan shifts himself into a nice, loose-limbed position on the duvet. The morning sun has warmed the room before climbing above the bedroom windows and he’s cool but not uncomfortable. He draws a hand down from the pillows and idles his fingers down his own chest. The edge of his thumb snags at his nipple ring and he circles it lightly, remembering Jimmy’s mouth, his own hands in Jimmy’s hair, the slide of Jimmy’s tongue and the soft, wet, insistent warmth of Jimmy’s lips. The nip and pull of his teeth. Duncan pinches with thumb and forefinger. Delicious pain.

He had had the nipple pierced a dozen years ago, in Boston. At the time he’d been in a casual on again, off again thing with one of the girls running light and sound. She’d set off every metal detector they went through during the tour but in Boston she’d decided a second ring in her left nipple was just the memento she needed and talked Duncan into getting the same.

He had noticed Jimmy notice it, not long after, when they’d been on summer holiday with Cassie in the south of France. The memory of that moment had come back to him last night, when Jimmy had bent his head and placed his lips just -- _there_ \-- Duncan arches into the echo of Jimmy’s tongue tasting his skin. Above his head he grips the wood of the headboard so as not to reach for his stiffening cock. He’s promised Jimmy. _Fuck_ does he enjoy this, the dragging it out, the agony of knowing it could be _hours_ yet, before he comes.

Beside his head the mobile buzzes.

**_please tell me you’re doing something more interesting than this_ **

Jimmy sends a picture of a wood, dense with undergrowth. In the far left corner of the frame Duncan can see the bright yellow vest of the searcher walking his or her allotted length to Jimmy’s left; there will be another just outside the frame to the right.

_definitely more interesting_

Duncan thumbs the camera to selfie mode and takes a picture of his hand, finger and thumb twisting the nipple ring ever so slightly. It winks in the light. Jimmy will take note of the angry flush of worked-over skin. He sends the photo, letting his free hand drift down across his abdomen -- lower, lower -- without touching himself where Jimmy has told him not to touch. He’s getting harder, just from thinking about _not_ touching, and he skirts his fingernails along the edge of his thatch of curls, shivering at the excruciating tickle of nail against sensitized skin. He’s not looking, exactly, his eyes are on the screen, but he can still see the shape of himself, framed by coarse gray pubic hair, the white skin of his thighs.

There’s an art to this, and it requires attention that also isn’t attention. The ability to ride the arousal building under his skin without actually fully committing to it. Because if he gives over to it, the pleasure will peak and fall away in a matter of moments. He’d probably not do more than lay a hand on his erection to finish it, if he lays here much longer thinking of how much he _wants_ but can't have. Or could have, but won't take -- not until Jimmy returns. By the time Jimmy’s home in the mid-afternoon he’ll have been riding high so long it’ll feel like a really, _really_ good high: Like he’s always felt this way, will always feel this way -- and as though the world is fucking wonderful.

_you ever done this?_

If he has to focus on typing, he can’t lose himself completely to sensation.

_ever lie here in this bed_

_thinking about how much you want me to touch you?_

**_Christ. Duncan._** Jimmy responds a few seconds later. **_I’m working._**

 _pretty sure you can think about fucking me_ , Duncan writes back, _AND do your job. or you'd have told me to shut up long before this._

 ** _tell me_** , Jimmy responds after a minute of silence.

**_tell me how you want me to touch you_ **

Duncan grins at the mobile screen. When he sent the first photograph this morning -- out of a mixture of boredom, desire, and curiosity about how Jimmy might respond -- he hadn't been sure Jimmy would play along. He almost can’t imagine Jimmy flirting,  sexting. Even when he’s enjoying himself Jimmy is _earnest_ and flirtation sometimes takes a bit of creative license. Fifty-fifty -- maybe even sixty-forty, he had thought Jimmy would shut him down at the first or second selfie. That he hadn’t -- that he actually wants Duncan to keep typing -- is a playful, sexy Jimmy whom Duncan has barely let himself imagine might exist. And now Jimmy’s just … _offering_ i t to him.

So how _does_ he want Jimmy to touch him?

He drops the mobile back on the duvet and considers. He traces circles around his belly button, smoothes his palms lower down the outside of his hips to the backs of his knees. He pulls his knees up and lets his legs fall open, feels the tug of muscle at his groin. Feels the building desire -- tempered by his recent inattention -- clench once more right _there_ , right where everything is growing ever tighter, heavier, fuller, needier.

He slides one palm slowly over his kneecap and then strokes up the inside of his thigh, careful not to let his wrist brush his dick. Lets his fingers graze his balls. Jimmy hadn't said they were off-limits too, but Duncan knows from experience it would only be a few panting moments from that sort of touch to an inevitable orgasm. He doesn’t think that would anger Jimmy, particularly, or result in any sort of … punishment. Neither he, nor (he thinks) Jimmy, seem inclined to play the game that way. But still. He’s in the mood to give Jimmy what Jimmy says he wants. So he skirts the places his body is straining for touch, and touches all the places that never get enough attention: the soft insides of his thighs, the flesh of his arse, the pucker of muscle there he’s looking forward to having Jimmy explore with his fingers and maybe other ways too. He brings his palms together over his belly and slides both hands up his own arms, over his shoulders, back down across his chest, lifts one hand up again to trace the outline of his own lips, slip a finger, then another, between his own teeth to slide across his tongue.

 ** _tell me._** Jimmy had asked. **_tell me how you want me._**

Duncan drags in a deep breath, his lungs expanding inside a chest too small to hold everything he feels. He pushes the air back out and drags in another. He digs his fingers into the duvet, twisting them tight, forcing himself to slow down. Then slow down even more. He’s begun rocking his hips, pushing up gently into the frustrating emptiness of air where he wants Jimmy’s solidness to be, then down against the bulwark of the bed that will hold him there for Jimmy to draw all his pleasure from. Duncan inhales again, deep, and exhales, feeling his lungs expand and collapse. Expand … and collapse. As he breathes, he thinks about what gift of _wanting_ he can put into Jimmy’s careful, caring hands.


	3. Jimmy

Jimmy is acutely aware of his mobile in the back pocket of his jeans as he tramps across the field. The search party has reached the final open stretch of ground between the last copse of trees and a low stone wall that demarcates the Scudders’ land. The mobile has been vibrating intermittently since his last exchange with Duncan: with each message alert his imagination -- ignoring his internal pleas to stay focused on the job -- helpfully fills in possible responses to the question of all the ways Duncan might want him.

Jimmy has known Duncan for long enough that he’d forgotten he would have so much _more_ to discover. But of course he does. People surprise you all the time, even when you _aren’t_ newly having sex with them. Without realizing it, Jimmy had turned his own decision not to talk with Duncan about sexual relationships into an assumption that, when it came to sex, Duncan would be a man of few and reluctant words. It had been less painful, he thinks (with a flush of shame), to pretend the silence was borne of mutual reticence than to imagine Duncan might be open about his desires ...just with people other than Jimmy. So he'd assumed. But so far, in the past twenty-four hours, Duncan’s been the opposite of silent. He's had no trouble putting words to what he wants -- now he knows Jimmy wants him to ask. Turns out, all Jimmy needed to say was: _Tell me. Show me. I’m listening. I want. I want to know._

He reaches the low stone wall at the edge of the field and turns back to survey the rest of the search party’s progress. They haven’t found their thieves, which means returning to the station so they can follow up other possible leads. Likely a lot of hours over the next few days looking through CCTV footage and systematically tracing vague reports from beat constables and concerned citizens. It’s tedious work but at least no one’s died or been abducted. He’ll take tedium over tragedy any day of the week.

He pulls out his mobile to ring Sandy, at the far end of the line of searchers, and can't help but see the text app, brimming with notifications, as he wakes up the screen. _Christ._ He wants to make up an excuse right then and there to send the whole party back as they came, sectioning the wood again meter by meter just to give him an hour’s privacy with his mobile.

He hesitates with his thumb over the texting app. Then shakes his head and makes himself call Sandy first. Sandy’s a half step ahead of him, thanks to Jimmy's sex-addled brain, and the vehicles are already on the way from the MacCorey farmhouse. All the search party has to do is wait. They gather by the nearest gate providing access into the lane. Everyone is already chatting, or on their mobile, by the time Jimmy walks up. So he lets himself step slightly away from the group and pull up Duncan’s latest texts.

There are a lot of new texts. And longer ones than Duncan usually sends. There aren’t any more pictures. But as Jimmy scrolls back up to where his last question appears he gets the distinct impression that the lack of photos hardly makes the conversation safe for work.

There's a break of several minutes from his own last text and Duncan’s response.

_you must be chasing criminals again ;-)_

_is thinking of me spending the day naked in bed NOT touching myself making that difficult for you?_

_not the least bit sorry if it is_

Another pause.

_you asked me how I wanted you to touch me_

_here’s the first answer: I like *waiting* to be touched_

_being here with nothing to distract me from the thought that you WILL come home and touch me_

Jimmy has to close his eyes for a moment, shivering with the effort of not groaning aloud, at the image of Duncan straining against prohibited movement.

_imagining how you MIGHT touch me, when you finally arrive_

_how you touched me on the sofa yesterday: as if you already knew I was yours for the taking_

_you were right. probably always been yours for the taking_

_have been for awhile now_

_hope you’re prepared to make up for lost time_

There's a gap of seven minutes between texts. Then:

_here’s another answer for you:_

_I want you to touch me the way I'm touching myself now. slow and lazy, like we have all the time in the world. like we'll stay in this bed forever, skimming our hands over each other’s skin until we can’t stand another second, and come, and then return to touching until we can’t stand it again._

_sometimes, on stage, when the night is really good and every member of the band is killing it you reach this point where you feel like you could just keep playing forever, that nothing actually exists apart from the stage, and the players, and the music your making_

_the best sex is like that moment_

_here’s a third answer for you: I want to discover new things we might like_

Jimmy doesn’t let himself think before he hits the call button and puts the mobile to his ear.

“Jimmy,” Duncan answers on the second ring, Jimmy’s name falling through the connection as a soft exhale of relief.

“New things like this?” Jimmy pitches his voice low and takes another few steps away from the group clustered at the gate.

“Maybe,” Duncan agrees, sounding breathless. “Whatever it is you’ve a mind to do, you’d best give it a go and see how we like it.”

“Aye,” Duncan says.

“Tell me --” Jimmy says. He hears the soft break of desire in his voice and coughs. Tries again. “Tell me, then.”

“Alone?”

“Alone enough.” The police cars have pulled up at the gate. Jimmy gestures with his free hand, first to the phone at his ear, then to the cars, then back in the direction they’d all come, hoping the search team understands. They hesitate, then seem to get the message as Jimmy starts back across the field to the path through the wood; it’ll take less than thirty minutes to walk back to his car in the MacCorey barnyard. Thirty minutes during which he’ll have the privacy of the great outdoors with only a few goats and sheep to overhear one half of a very private conversation he’s about to recklessly embark upon.

“God, Jimmy, I want you,” Duncan says. “I’ve been at least half hard since you left this morning. Everything too tight and uncomfortable so I took it off. Sat down on the sofa with my legs spread wide, thinking about you kneeling between my knees, your warm --” he pauses for a moment and Jimmy closes his eyes against the sound of Duncan’s breath catching, “-- your warm mouth around my --” another breath “--cock. _God_." Jimmy listens to the soft groan of a sound, thinks about how Duncan must look, spread on the bed: his penis thick between his thighs, his balls tight beneath it, the thatch of curls, damp with sweat and slick with arousal.

“Look at yourself,” he says, trying to pitch his voice somewhere between and order and a request. Duncan seems to like complying and Jimmy wants to give him what he likes -- but he also needs to know, for himself, that Duncan is doing this by choice rather than coercion. “Look at yourself and tell me what you see.”

There’s a beautiful, strangled sound of need at the other end of the connection, one that makes Jimmy almost sob with desire. He stops walking along the path and leans against the tall, straight trunk of a plantation pine. He palms himself over the zip of his jeans, feeling how much he wants Duncan there to undo him. Duncan, on his knees, his eyes of Jimmy’s face as he unzips Jimmy’s jeans and reaches in to free him.

“I see my cock all heavy and waiting for you,” Duncan says in a low almost-whisper. “I’m lying here against your pillows -- the bed clothes stink of sex, by the way, I’ve never felt so debauched as I do now -- fondling my own nipples with my free hand. Thinking about how hard I could come if only you let me touch myself.”

“I bet you could come without touching yourself,” Jimmy says, feeling the cool, damp air of the wood swallow up the sound of his voice. “Could you do that for me? Come without laying a single finger on yourself and then lay there until I got home to mop you up and then wring another orgasm out of you?”

Jimmy’s never done that himself, but his own dick is definitely interested in the _idea_ of it, of pushing Duncan over the edge. Just by _asking_ him to. 

_New things we might like._

Duncan seems interested in the idea of it too, to judge by the sound of his breathing at the other end of the mobile connection. “I don’t --” he starts. “I haven’t ever ...done that. Before. In the interest of full disclosure.” He doesn’t sound unwilling. The opposite, in fact, as if he’s certain Jimmy can talk him through this.

“Haven’t done this before either,” Jimmy admits, closing his eyes and thinking about Duncan. Duncan, who’s been waiting for him _hours_ at this point --who would willingly wait hours more. Part of him likes the idea of asking Duncan to wait. He knows Duncan would. Part of him wants to run all the way back to the MacCorey’s for his car and drive home to do this in person. Part of him wants to learn if this -- phone sex, something he's always felt clumsy at -- can actually enjoy this together.

 _New things_ , he thinks. _New things we could like._

“Keep ... talking. Please,” Duncan pleads, almost inaudible.

“Okay,” Jimmy whispers back.

He’s aching with it, the knowledge that he gets -- that they both get to have this now, have each other, say _yes_.

“I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you all morning,” he says, figuring what the hell maybe just saying aloud, saying what neither of them said for so long, is what Duncan needs to hear from him. “God, you’re beautiful. Do you know that? I look up when you walk into a room and I'm hard. It’s been bloody distracting.” Duncan laughs, as Jimmy means him to. “Laugh all you want, it’s been me at work all morning stiff in my pants because I can’t get the sight of you, naked, out of my head.” He palms himself again, enjoying the way his body tightens in response.

“Where are your hands?” He really has no idea how to do this, have phone sex, so he just keeps talking because if he stops to ask himself if he’s doing it right he’ll probably die from embarrassment.

“I --” Duncan responds, sounding slightly disoriented. “I'm -- one hand holding the phone. The other -- I’ve hold of the duvet because Jimmy, I swear if I touch myself anywhere I'll --”

"No. You won't," Jimmy says, deliberately calm, pushing authority into his voice, and later he’ll think about whether it bothers him, knowing he can say this and Duncan will do it. “You can come for me, but you won’t until I say.”

“Good?” Jimmy asks, just to be sure. Because they have no plan, this is all improvisation, and probably this is the sort of thing you should have safe words for, but they don’t, so he asks.

“ _So good. Please_ ,” Duncan responds, almost a sob.

Jimmy runs a fingernail up the zip of his own jeans, feels his dick pulse against the denim. He thinks about how agonizing it must be for Duncan, wanting to move so badly, wanting something, anything, the mattress, the duvet, his own hand, Jimmy’s hip, and not to have anything but air.

“You must be so hard,” he says. “I’m hard just thinking about it. And I’m leaking, I can feel it, I’ll be damp for the rest of the day until I come home and I have you strip me. I bet you’re leaking too. I bet if you look down your can see yourself hard and swollen, if you could touch yourself your hand would be slick with arousal. But you don’t--” he lets the need fill his voice, let’s himself take a panting breath, let’s Duncan hear how much Jimmy _wants_ \-- 

“Ah, _fuck_ \--” Duncan grits out and then, “ _fuck_ , Jimmy, I’m --” and then there's just a long, eloquent silence, one of the hottest sounds Jimmy can ever remember, because he knows -- he knows -- and, then he’s coming too, against the heel of his palm, through his jeans, as he presses the mobile to his ear and listens to the nearly inaudible sound of Duncan panting for him, to him, with him.

“ _Fuck_ ,” he agrees, and thankfully only the trees are there to hear. “Duncan -- fuck.”

“I’d say we just did,” Duncan slurs, after a heartbeat, into his ear.


	4. Duncan

Duncan drifts into a light sleep after Jimmy rings off with promises of returning home as swiftly as work will allow. Duncan thinks about gathering the energy and coordination necessary to roll his eyes because he knows Jimmy won’t be home until he’s let his team leave for the day. But imagining the movement is all his body has left. And he honestly isn’t that bothered by the possibility that “tea” could fall anywhere between four and seven. Now that the agony of desire and the urgency of orgasm have washed through him he could sleep for a day, a week, maybe longer. He smiles to himself at the thought: Jimmy kissing him awake at regular intervals, making sure he eats something, stays hydrated. Nudges him out of bed every so often in the direction of the toilet. _Ugh._ He’s going to need a piss soon and why do bodies have to be inconvenient like that? Because all he wants to do is burrow down among the bedclothes and drift deeper into his post-coital nap. He sighs into the quiet of the bedroom and hauls himself into just enough wakefulness and physical coordination to make it to the loo, then back again, before falling properly asleep.

He dreams delicious dreams, the way he sometimes does in the wake of orgasm, as if the flood of pleasure just keeps on flowing, a slow upwelling of good feeling that makes him forget that there will ever be a time when he doesn’t feel this content and in love with the world, and right now in love with Jimmy in particular. The dreams don’t stick with him in detail, and even when he surfaces for a moment or two to change position or kick the duvet off his feet he can’t hold onto more than whisper of form and feeling. It’s Jimmy who remains the constant: Jimmy’s voice, Jimmy’s lips, Jimmy’s aftershave, the taste of coffee, the scent of rain. Jimmy’s body sliding against his own: weight, skin, hair, slick arousal. He sinks into the certainty of _Jimmy Jimmy Jimmy._

“Duncan, love,” Jimmy murmurs some time later, sliding under the rumpled duvet and scooping drowsy Duncan in against his own bare chest. Duncan makes what he intends to be a sound of supreme contentment as Jimmy’s nearly-naked body spoons up against his back, his bum, his thighs.

“You’re still wearing your shorts,” he complains, wriggling slightly against the offending garment as he fits himself snugly into Jimmy’s lap.

“I’m lucky to be wearing shorts at all,” Jimmy points out, pressing a kiss behind Duncan’s ear. “Because _someone_ made me come in my pants.” Duncan smiles without opening his eyes and slides his free hand down the curve of Jimmy’s arm where he has Duncan firm around the waist. Their fingers tangle together, Duncan’s palm over Jimmy’s knuckles. He feels the wedding band Jimmy still wears -- though now on the middle finger of his right hand. Fran’s is in a safe deposit box in Lerwick for when (if ever) Cassie may want it.

“It’s a good thing I keep a spare change of clothes at the station. If you plan on making these sorts of shenanigans a regular thing.” 

Duncan snorts. “You did most of the work.”

“ _You_ sent the photos,” Jimmy teases.

“Really. You’re _really_ trying to bicker with me about this?” Duncan twists to look over his shoulder, amused. Jimmy smiles down at him, softly, shaking his head.

“Not really. Though you must admit we know how to bicker. We have lots of practice. Less so with this.” He smooth a hand over Duncan’s hip.

“We seem to be working it out.” Duncan reaches across himself to lay his palm against Jimmy’s cheek. Already, the gesture feels natural. 

“We do, don’t we.” Jimmy turns to kiss Duncan’s palm, then settles down against the pillows, Duncan sprawled back against his chest. They’re comfortable, Duncan realizes. It’s simply … comfortable.

“Cassie texted while I was driving home,” Jimmy says. And this is how it will be from now on isn’t it? The sort of mudanities they’ve come to share at the dinner table now woven in with tangled limbs and lazy kisses. “She still sounds jet-lagged but the flat Edison found them looks real enough. I'll show you the pictures when we get up.”

“You want to get on the next plane and fly across the Atlantic to make sure she has food in the fridge.” Duncan knows Jimmy, but he also knows every nineteen year old has to make their own mistakes. God knows he did. And he hadn't had parents who'd cared whether he had food in the fridge -- or even if he had a fridge in the first place.

“I do, a bit,” Jimmy admits ruefully. “But I know you’ll take her side and stop me.”

“I can still love you for it though,” Duncan says. “She does too. It’s a gift to be cared for the way you care for us.”

As if on cue, Duncan's stomach growls and Jimmy laughs. “It’s _you_ who’ve been taking care of me this past year, don’t think I haven’t noticed.”

Duncan shakes his head. “If so, it wasn’t anything not already owed in balance. You’ve always been on the lookout for me, since --” _since Fran died_. It feels newly strange to acknowledge that part of their shared history. Grief and joy rasping as they slide together.

“Mmm,” Jimmy dips his head to kiss the black ink of Duncan’s tattoo: three thin lines around his upper arm, one for Cassie, one for Fran, one for Jimmy. “I freely admit, though, I’ve only ever been a passable cook. I’d be subsisting on a lot more takeaway if I lived on my own."

“There are other ways to care.” Duncan’s stomach rumbles again. “Although right now food is sounding pretty good. Shall we reheat the curry?”

* * *

The curry takeaway is spicy and full of cream and just what he needs. They wash it down with midsummer ale sitting slumped together on the sofa in hoodies and pyjama pants like they’re teenagers again. Jimmy stretches out and puts his legs in Duncan’s lap; Duncan props his bowl precariously on Jimmy’s calves, and they watch old episodes of _Good Neighbors_. It's comfort viewing for Jimmy, who remembers watching the show with his parents, and now comfort viewing for Duncan as well, having watched it for years with Jimmy and Cassie.

Duncan remembers pieces of these particular episodes from when he sat vigil with Jimmy and Cassie, and Fran’s parents, in the final week’s of Fran’s dying. _Active_ dying, the hospice nurse had called it. In reality it had been the opposite of active for most of them. There had been no action for any of them to take, except be present. He knows that being with someone, of remaining beside them as they die, is an action. But it hadn’t felt so at the time. It had felt as if the whole world had been put on pause as Fran disintegrated. Except that the living still needed to eat and sleep, and he'd had a terrified daughter who needed cuddles -- even as he’d desperately wished for someone to cuddle him.

A memory slides through his mind, a night toward the end -- perhaps the last stretch of darkness before the dawn when Fran left them -- when he and Jimmy had fallen into exhausted sleep, together, on the narrow cot that had been added to the bedroom Jimmy and Fran shared. Both of them drained of anything but the constancy of grief as they listened through the night to Fran’s labored breathing. They had forged an unanticipated singularity in those hours, Duncan thinks, waiting together. A foundation of togetherness that has only grown stronger over the intervening years.

He doesn’t realize he’s begun rubbing Jimmy’s feet until Jimmy groans and slides even further down against the arm of the sofa. “God, never stop,” he says.

Duncan pauses, for a moment, to look down at his fingers resting on Jimmy’s bony ankles. He presses a thumb into Jimmy’s instep experimentally. Jimmy _hmmms_ his approval. It’s mostly nonsexual but still lovely, still touch, and connection. It brings back much more recent memories of their shared morning shower, of the way Jimmy had run soapy hands down Duncan’s back to cup his arse with sure hands in order to pull him in under the spray for gentle kisses. They had both been orgasmed out, yet Jimmy still reached for Duncan with a tenderness that Duncan has rarely been the subject of outside of explicitly sexual contact.

Jimmy has always taken care of him, no questions asked. Jimmy is one of maybe five, six people Duncan could name whom he trusts to take him in if he were to show up on their doorstep in the middle of the night -- maybe even covered in blood with a knife in his hand -- without blinking an eye. For someone who was kicked out by his father at the age of sixteen, that list of names is a necessary and cherished possession. And Duncan hadn’t realized, until now, that he’s been holding his breath to see if sex changes that. The realization that it hasn’t -- that the easy proximity of sharing a life hasn't been taken from him, the pleasure of orgasms has just been added -- releases a tightness in his chest. _You get to have this, too._ He watches his hands work over Jimmy’s feet, conscious of the tears picking a the corners of his eyes. _You lucky bastard._

Jimmy must be watching his face, because he folds himself forward to put a hand to Duncan’s cheek.

“What,” he says, too gently. “I can _see_ you thinking.”

Duncan shakes his head. “Just...grateful to be here,” he whispers. Then coughs to clear his throat.

Jimmy leans forward a little further, closing the remaining distance between them.

“I’ve...always been grateful to be where you are, love.” He says, against Duncan’s lips. “Do you think you can forgive me for taking so long to sort the truth of that out?"

Duncan shakes his head, honestly not sure whether he’s withholding forgiveness or denying the need for it. He’s already mourning every day during which they haven’t shared a life just like this. Even though he wouldn’t have known what to do with this life five, ten, fifteen years ago; even though it would have terrified him; even though he wants no part of an alternate past that didn’t also give them Fran, and Cassie.

He’s just always been greedy and he wants to have had Jimmy too.

He tugs at Jimmy’s hips, urging him up and into Duncan’s lap. It’s awkward, this way: Duncan has to crane his neck a little and Jimmy hunch his shoulders a little to make it work. But Duncan likes the weight of Jimmy over his thighs, the way Jimmy is already starting to rock gently in toward him, the way Duncan can rub his nose down Jimmy’s breastbone while Jimmy digs his fingers into the meat of Duncan's shoulders.

This position makes Duncan think of all of the places he’d like to have Jimmy sink willingly into his lap: On a park bench, at a ceilidh, on the beach, at the top of Ben Nevis, maybe, or at Glasgow pride. He wants Jimmy to treat Duncan’s space as his own -- and it might be nice for the whole world to know.

Jimmy tastes of curry and beer and still smells of sex, or _they_ still smell of sex, or maybe the house just smells of home and sex is a part of that now. Duncan drops Jimmy's shirt and mouths his way up to hum happily against Jimmy’s mouth. Jimmy murmurs fondly: “Greedy.”

“ _So_ greedy,” Duncan agrees. He pushes the hoodie off Jimmy’s shoulders and lets Jimmy do the rest of the work so he can slide his hands back down, dig his fingers into Jimmy’s hips, nose his way across the warmth of Jimmy’s chest under the cloth of his worn University of Glasgow t-shirt. Faintly, behind Jimmy’s back, the _Good Neighbors_ episode ends and a new one begins. On the coffee table one of their mobiles buzzes. Jimmy grunts in annoyance but doesn’t pull away. Duncan nips at his shoulder in appreciation, then noses his way up the curve of Jimmy’s neck to his earlobe. Another nip.

“Please,” Jimmy breathes against Duncan’s cheek.

Duncan nips again. “You like that?”

Jimmy tips his chin to give Duncan better access. “ _Please_.”

Duncan nips a bit harder, sucks a kiss behind Jimmy’s ear that will bruise. Jimmy digs his fingers into Duncan's arms, a breathy little sound rising up out of his throat telling Duncan everything he needs to hear about how willingly Jimmy has melted into his arms. “Did you think about this while you were at work today?”

“You know I did,”Jimmy laughs against his shoulder. He’s got his own hands between them, now, fumbling at Duncan’s hoodie, running the back of his hand over the parts of Duncan that are shifting gears from lazy love to something more intentional -- and goal oriented. Duncan feels Jimmy rock a little bit closer, closing the gap between, riding his own wrist, seeking pleasure in a way that Duncan loves to see, loves to be offered. Jimmy will put everyone else's needs before his own, until he’s run ragged, and it’s a generosity that Duncan cherishes, that Duncan himself has taken advantage of in the past. It’s seductive to have this Jimmy, too -- Jimmy taking what he wants from Duncan, from the moment, without stopping to ask what Duncan might need or want from him. It’s fucking _hot_ and Duncan wants more of it.

“What do you want, love,” he asks, softly, against the base of Jimmy’s throat. “Tell me what you need.”

“I need --” Jimmy pants. “I need -- _Christ_ I don’t know, Duncan. Anything. Everything. _You_.” He sounds almost cross, and Duncan laughs. He sits forward on the sofa, his hand at the small of Jimmy’s back to steady him, and moves to take first his own hoodie and t-shirt off and then strip Jimmy in turn, to the waist, so he can trail a line of soft-hard kisses down Jimmy’s chest, nipping and licking and tracing Jimmy’s nipples with tongue and teeth. 

On a hunch he captures Jimmy’s wrists with his hands -- not tight, but firm, and feels Jimmy relax into the touch.

“Let me do this for you, aye?” Duncan asks, thinking about the way Jimmy took care of him earlier, over the phone, indulging Duncan’s pushy interruptions, gamely trying new things and -- _fuck_ \-- earning full marks at all of them. Duncan wants to do this for Jimmy now, give him some of that caring in return, letting him sink into the pleasure of someone else making the effort, of thinking ahead, of paying attention.

They’re quiet, together, for three, four beats. The only sound in the room the familiar burble of the television and the soft indraw and exhale of breath. Duncan can feel Jimmy considering Duncan’s offer in the way his muscles aren’t quite done resisting the hold Duncan has on his wrists. Duncan is poised to hold him, support him, so Jimmy can just let go. But Jimmy hasn’t quite done so. Yet.

Breath. Another breath.

“Take me back to bed?” When Jimmy finally speaks, it comes out a question.

“That I can most definitely do,” Duncan says with a kiss pressed to Jimmy’s collarbone.

Jimmy slides off Duncan’s lap and stands up, putting out a hand to haul Duncan along after. Duncan lets the momentum of rising carry him into another kiss, toe to toe, bare chests pressed together. He slides his hands down the back of Jimmy’s shoulders, reveling in the expanse of skin available to touch, and the way Jimmy shivers. He settles his hands on Jimmy’s hips and walks him backward in the direction of the bedroom. “Mmm, that’s right.”

They reach the bed clumsily, unwilling to stop the give and take of kisses, and all it takes is a little shove of encouragement on Duncan’s part before Jimmy tumbles back against the pillows. His hair is mussed from lying on the sofa and from where Duncan has combed his fingers through it, unable to resist the little sounds of pleasure Jimmy makes when he tugs, just a little. At least one of the places where Duncan bit him on the shoulder is blossoming into a bruise. _Mine_ , thinks Duncan with fierce satisfaction, as he strips off the rest of his clothes and follows Jimmy onto the mattress.

“What, and I’m just supposed to _stay_ clothed?” Jimmy is watching Duncan appreciatively; though he doesn’t reach out to touch with his hands, his gaze settling on Duncan feels like a caress. As proprietary as Duncan’s own thoughts have become: _Mine_. Duncan shivers as he kneels at the foot of the bed. Jimmy’s hasn’t forgotten Duncan's promise to take care of him because he doesn’t move to do anything now that they're here. He’s loose-limbed on the mattress, hands relaxed and palms open on the pillows by his head. He’s just waiting. Waiting. And somehow that makes the moment more intimate. Duncan is as aware of Jimmy’s erection beneath the flannel of his pyjamas as he is aware of his own.

“Mmm,” Duncan considers the question of the pyjamas. “Would you _like_ to?”

“Would _you_ like me to?” Jimmy turns the question around with a smile, till waiting, and he’s going to be like this about it, is he?

“Mmm -- I think I might,” Duncan says, crawling up Jimmy's body until he's kneeling over Jimmy’s belly. He drops close, feeling his dick, heavy and full of wanting, brush against Jimmy’s bare belly. He presses his face against Jimmy’s shoulder and groans, not doing anything to hide how good this feels, to have Jimmy spread out beneath him. 

Jimmy’s breath is growing harsher, but he remains utterly still. Quiescent.

Duncan holds himself just above Jimmy, close but not close enough. He listens to Jimmy’s breath as he brushes his lips along the line of Jimmy’s collarbone. 

“You want something more?” he asks.

“You know I do.” Jimmy says, soft. 

“But I like to hear you say it.” Duncan moves his lips upward, tracing the line of Jimmy's throat, then the slightly scratchy curve of his jaw, then to hover above Jimmy's lips.

“You know I do,” Jimmy whispers under him once more.

“What ‘more’ do you want?” Duncan asks. He’s curious what Jimmy will say.

“I thought that was yours to decide,” Jimmy counters.

“Yeah, but,” Duncan says, licking his lips. Then licking Jimmy's. Just a tease of tongue. He feels Jimmy's lips part. “I’ve decided I want you to _say_ … and then I’ll _do_.”

“Liked the sound of my voice that much this morning?” Duncan feels more than sees the curve of Jimmy’s smile.

“Mmm,” Duncan agrees. “And I think you should use it right now to tell me exactly. What. You want. Me to do. For you.”

Jimmy is quiet for a long moment. Long enough for Duncan to wonder if he's gone in the wrong direction. Maybe he should just --

\-- “I want --” Jimmy starts. Then stops. He squeezes his eyes shut, a blush scorching across his cheeks. Duncan waits.

“I haven’t done this in awhile but,” Jimmy tries again, clearing his throat. “But I haven’t been able to stop thinking about -- thinking about you inside me.”

Duncan feels the request like a flush of heat across his skin and shudders. 

“Fran was the last person to fuck me like that," Jimmy says, low. Low enough that if Duncan wasn’t still bent over him on knees and elbows, listening with his whole attention, he might not have made out the worlds. “I’ve missed it.”

Maybe talking about Fran should feel inappropriate when they’re tangled together like this, when everything they’re doing would have been a violation of promises made when Fran was alive. But, Duncan thinks, the fidelity that the living owe the dead becomes something new with the passage of time, and it feels like Fran is a part of this because she _was_ a part of this, a part of their shared history, a part of why their lives came together when and how they did.

“You don’t-- have to,” Jimmy says, and Duncan realizes he’s been quiet too long. He turns his face into the warm hollow by Jimmy's ear.

“Love. I know I don’t _have_ to,” he says. “I don’t have to do any of this. I’m here because I _want_ to.” He feels Jimmy’s erection twitch against his own, the flannel barrier still between them. He’ll have to see to that. The one problem the have is -- “The only problem, love, is I don’t have any condoms. Do you --”

“Fuck,”Jimmy mutters. “ _Fuck_. And I nearly stopped at --”

“Stay right there,” Duncan presses a rough kiss against Jimmy’s cheek. “Don’t move. I’ve just the thing.”


	5. Jimmy

Jimmy holds himself still, listening to the sounds of Duncan rummaging in his own room down the hall. He knows he could move. Knows Duncan isn’t so committed to this game that if Jimmy changed the rules he’d call the whole thing off. But he likes this. Likes forcing himself to lie still, to do nothing, to wait. Likes letting Duncan decide what they will do next. It feels good knowing they are on the other side of deciding _whether_ and the _how_ feels almost inconsequential as long as Duncan is touching him -- and Jimmy can reach out and touch him back.

There’s a soft sound in the doorway and Duncan has returned. He’s beautiful, Jimmy thinks, watching him cross to the bed. He’s on the scrawny side, with just the slightest hint of softness around his hips and belly, filled out since the earliest days of their acquaintance when he was more sunburn and sinew. His penis has softened a bit since he left the room but is still interested. Jimmy wants to learn every flavor of Duncan’s arousal with his tongue, be as intimately familiar with the way Duncan's cock feels in his hand as he is with his own.

Duncan’s weight shifts the mattress as he kneels up on the bed. “Success,” he whispers, leaning in for a kiss as he notches himself flush against Jimmy’s side. He holds out his hand above Jimmy’s chest to reveal the bottle of lube and the squat (and disconcertingly magenta) silicone plug he's brought back from the other room.

Jimmy and Fran had had a small collection of such accessories; Jimmy had thrown them all in the bin when they were packing up the flat in Glasgow to move back to Shetland. He hadn’t been able to even think about them without grief washing over him. Granted, at the time nearly every action -- from waking up in the morning to ordering a coffee at the Costa round the corner to doing a load of laundry -- had threatened to incapacitate him with grief. He hadn’t been able to imagine, at that point in his life -- except in the abstract -- ever feeling sexual again, by himself or with someone else.

Slowly, it has come back, the hunger for the solace of touch, the pleasure of orgasm, the wanting to share such moments with another person. But there haven't been opportunities-- or perhaps he hasn't accepted opportunities implicitly offered -- to build up the familiarity, the trust, he’d had with Fran, to play a little. He shouldn’t be surprised, and he isn’t really, that when Duncan asked _what do you want_ , the first thing to rise to the surface of his conscious desires was this.

He lifts a hand and reaches across his chest to take the plug from Duncan’s hand. It’s flexible, on the small side, flared at the base with a narrow neck and bulbous head. It’s a model he remembers Fran enjoying and wonders whether Duncan had ever used this one with her. His mind also helpfully points out that Duncan owns this and had it ready-to-hand, has probably used it on himself.

Jimmy wants, suddenly, to use this on Duncan: have him kneel on hands and knees, arse pushed naked into the air, while Jimmy traces the line from tailbone to opening with oiled fingers.

He swallows as Duncan nuzzles at his ear, waiting for Jimmy to speak. His now-empty hand is splayed across Jimmy’s belly below his navel, where his pyjama pants are riding low over his hips. He wants so many things at once: Duncan’s hand on his dick, Duncan’s fingers pressing inside him, the little toy filling him, Duncan filling him.

“Please,” he says again, because that supplication seems to encompass all of it.

“My pleasure,” Duncan takes the toy from Jimmy’s hand and leans up on one elbow. “Pull your legs up for me, there’s a good lad.” He slides a warm palm under the crook of Jimmy’s right knee, smooths down the back of Jimmy’s thigh to the mattress, ghosts fingertips over Jimmy’s groin. Jimmy groans in approval.

“That’s good,” Duncan is murmuring. “That’s good, you’re so beautiful like this, all open for me.” He shifts and Jimmy feels Duncan’s arousal hard against his hip. “Now take these pyjamas off for me,” Duncan moves his hand up in a lazy, dragging arc to Jimmy’s nipples, testing and tweaking as Jimmy fumbles with the drawstring and elastic waistband, lifts his hips off the mattress and shoves the cloth down over his thighs and knees. There is no graceful way to do this. He doesn’t care, knows Duncan doesn’t care.

“You wanna be on your back or on your hands and knees?” Duncan is focused on Jimmy, Jimmy can feel the regard, though he’s also rocking himself slow and gentle against Jimmy’s side like he’s keeping time, keeping the rhythm going, even as they’re talking.

“You decide,” Jimmy says, trembling slightly as Duncan moves his hand back down toward Jimmy’s groin. The pyjamas are still tangled around Jimmy’s ankles. He kind of likes them there, hobbling him, one more thing keeping him here on the bed.

“Mmm,” Duncan hums. “I think I like you just like this.” He trails his fingers, maddeningly, around the base of Jimmy’s erection, down around his aching balls, down to his arse. Jimmy lets his legs fall further open and Duncan murmurs his approval. “There you go, there you are, so beautiful,” he croons.

Jimmy closes his eyes so he can concentrate on the way Duncan’s hands move over his body, on the tight knot of pleasure building deep inside. There’s the _snick_ of the bottle of lube, then the slick cool slide of the gel. He pushes up into the slippery touch, feeling Duncan’s fingers taking their time between his legs, not only where the toy will go but everywhere: sliding around and cupping his balls, pushing up along his erection, thumbing over the sensitive head, skimming back down. Jimmy whines, wants Duncan to know how good this feels, how empty he’s feeling right now, how impatient he is for Duncan to do something about that emptiness.

Duncan’s hand pulls away -- Jimmy protests, Duncan chuckles -- and then the slick hand is back between Jimmy’s legs and he fists his hand in Duncan’s hair as Duncan leans in to kiss him deep and open just as he pushes the toy inside. Sweet intrusion two times over and all Jimmy can think is that he wants _more_.

Duncan chuckles again, against Jimmy’s lips. “That’s my greedy lad,” he says, and Jimmy realizes he must have said that last aloud. “Next time when we have condoms, aye?” He nods in agreement -- _God, yes, next time_ \-- then arches up as Duncan slides a hand under his arse and hauls him closer, sliding a thigh between Jimmy’s legs, slotting them together so his own dick presses hot and heavy into the groove of Jimmy’s hip and thigh. It’s awkward and messy and overwhelmingly good to feel Duncan wrapped around him, filling him, enfolding him.

He feels himself shaking toward the edge of the precipice of orgasm. Wishes it could last longer and knowing, tonight, it can’t, he’s not patient enough. He’s already chasing sensation, the press of the toy where it stretches tight muscle and holds him open, makes him want to grip tighter and resist the intrusion simultaneously, the taste of Duncan on his tongue, the smell of him, of them, of sex and sweat and the sleep they’ve already shared in this bed. The orgasms they've already had, the orgasms they will have spooling out into a future that looks radically different than it had two days ago. All of it filling his senses until he and Duncan, and what they’re grappling between them, becomes his entire world.

He comes hard. And suddenly. He usually has more warning, but this time the final clinch of pleasure seizes him between one kiss and the next and he’s digging his fingers into Duncan’s arms hard enough to bruise and has to hold his jaw rigid so he doesn’t bite down on Duncan’s lip hard enough to draw blood.

His ears are ringing, the slow-sludge rhythm of his post-orgasmic heartbeat. His limbs are limp. He’s wrung out and collapsed against Duncan’s body and maybe he’ll never move again.

Except, of course -- “--you?” He slurs.

Duncan laughs and kisses his forehead. “Shush now.”

They lie curled together in the light of the long summer evening that suffuses the bedroom. Jimmy can feel the alert tension in Duncan’s frame -- not demanding, but there. In a minute or two he won’t be able to resist his need to turn his attention to Duncan’s outstanding orgasm. But he isn’t an idiot and knows part of this, for both of them, has been Duncan caring for him in a way Jimmy struggles to accept from most people. So he makes himself stay limp in Duncan’s arms, his leg still slung over Duncan’s hip, until the post-orgasm glow fades and the butt plug starts to feel uncomfortable.

He shifts against Duncan, reaching and twisting to fumble with the base of the toy, and Duncan hisses at the thrust of Jimmy’s hip against where he’s still flushed and wanting.

“I’ve got you love,” Jimmy says. “Just let me --” the discomfort vanishes as the plug pops out and he tosses it away from them toward the far side of the mattress. Cleaning up can happen later. He turns back to Duncan. “Now. What was it you were saying?” He skims a hand down Duncan’s chest and pushes his pelvis forward again, ignoring the burn of rough curls against oversensitive flesh.

Duncan reaches between them to guide Jimmy’s hand to his cock, folding Jimmy’s fingers around the shaft like he might forget how it’s done without guidance. Jimmy laughs, the effort not much more than a languid rumble in his chest. “Still feeling bossy?”

Duncan presses his face into the sweat-damp hollow between Jimmy’s shoulder and chin. “Just like to feel you holding me,” he mutters, the words almost lost against Jimmy’s skin.

“Help me, then,” Jimmy murmurs into Duncan’s hair as he adjusts his grip. “Show me what you like. Where’s the lube, sweetheart?” Duncan fumbles behind his back and returns with the bottle; dribbles some on Jimmy’s hand and his own cock, and oh yeah the duvet cover is going to need a wash when this is all over, but Jimmy doesn’t care because Duncan’s hand is back over his own, squeezing, sliding, adjusting, everything slick and messy and warm and even though his body is drained of all but the most distant impulse toward orgasm he feels the faint echoes of sympathetic pleasure as he listens to Duncan’s breath grow shallower, more urgent, feels his muscles twitch and shudder in response to their collaborative movement. Duncan’s _yes, please, yes, just like, gentle, gentle, god, harder, please_ weaves in and out of Jimmy’s own equally senseless murmurings: _so good, so beautiful, there you go, there you are, my love, my love, my love --_ and Duncan is coming, a sudden, almost violent, shudder as he heaves in a breath and then lets it own in a long, low, groaning sigh as he collapses against Jimmy’s chest.

Gently, gently, Jimmy withdraws his hand and uses it -- lube and come and all -- to brush the hair off Duncan’s forehead, press a kiss to his brow, and settle him more firmly along Jimmy’s side. Soon, they’ll want to get up and shower. Soon, they’ll probably need to change the sheets. Soon, they’ll have to return to the daily rhythm of a world where every morning, afternoon, and evening isn’t punctuated by this sort of languorous pleasure, the sinking into the warmth of finally coming together after so many years of holding themselves apart. Soon -- but not too soon. He presses another kiss to Duncan’s forehead and flips the corner of the duvet across them both so that they can drift for a little longer in the now.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the same hymn as the first fic in the series: "[Seek Not Afar for Beauty"](https://hymnary.org/hymn/H4BG1935/167) by J. Savage Minot (1935), verse two:
>
>> Go not abroad for happiness: for see,  
> It is a flower blooming at thy door.  
> Bring love and justice home, and then no more  
> Thou'lt wonder in what dwelling joy may be.


End file.
